What the fuck is wrong with Corpus Christi?

The BBQ Pit
1

(The city in Texas, that is…)

So this last week, the wife, son, and I drove up to C.C. for a few days of vacation. My ghod, was that a bad idea. When did that town get so damn grim?

The Aquarium was, as always, wonderful. Our son is 3.5 years old, and really, really, got into seeing the dolphins play. Great place, nothing against it. We didn’t go onboard the Lex this time, but I’m sure it’s still a great place to explore.

The rest of the town is just falling apart. Really. Maybe I’m wrong, but because of our hotel… Check out the asshole bait and switch action… It’s a bit out of date, as it neglects to mention that there is no lunch or dinner, so no room service, or any place that sells cooked food at all, and that on a Sunday night there really is only one employee in the entire building, the one who couldn’t find my reservation, and got pissy when I suggested he try an alternate spelling of my last name.

At least there was a bar. No, not the one at the bottom of the 10 story atrium, it was tucked away in an empty corner of the building, wit it’s doors on the street outside. There are some dives that are cool, and some that are dumps, and a lot if that can be told by their policy on tolerating toothless women hanging around inside looking for a drink. So I couldn’t even drink away the pain.

I drove down the street a few blocks one night to get dinner at the world famous Whataburger flagship “by the bay”-- Ordered three burgers, every single one was prepared wrong… 0 for 3 at the best there is?

Corpus also has the deadest shopping mall I’ve ever seen, and I remember Crossroads Mall in Boulder. It’s right next to the second most abandoned mall I’ve ever been to. What a mess.

The thing that really broke my heart was the Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History.

The Pina and Santa Maria replicas are in drydock as they are no longer seaworthy. In many places the deck has rotted through, and our tour guide would not board either ship.

2

I’m sad to hear all this. When I lived in Laredo (late 80’s - early 90’s), all that made life in Texas bearable for me was taking trips to Corpus Christi. If I’d been able to land a job in the Corpus Christi school system, I might have actually stayed in Texas. Corpus was a cheery, fun place in those days.

3

Somehow this is Jerry Jones fault. God-dammned Cowboys.

4

You were just 3 hours away from South Padre.

My usual visit to Corpus is -

1 - See the Aquarium
2- Head for South Padre

Step 2 is critical

5

I find it necessary to point out something that only the longer-term Dopers will understand the full significance of: Wildest Bill was vehemently proud to be a lifelong resident of Corpus Christi. That to me explains a lot. :slight_smile:

6

They named a town after the Body of the Anointed One? I’ve always found that a little …odd.

7

Oh God.

I went to high school in a small town just north of there. Corpus Christi was where we went (mid to late 90s) because it was The Big City and More Fun than Aransas Pass.

It will come as no damn surprise that I moved out of that cesspit the very morning after high school graduation. The car was packed when I put on my cap and gown, and at 8 am the morning after the graduation lock-in I was on the road to Austin. I’ve returned a few times to visit friends and try to convince them to leave, leave, leave. They never do. I think there’s something in that place that ties and devours the soul, bite by bite.

Sunrise Mall was always (read: since 1992) a sad place, Padre Staples was rather better, but for anyone who knows Austin, it’s like Northcross Mall now. Sunrise was like that before; I understand it’s even worse now.

I’d gone back to Port Aransas to take some friends to the beach I’d remembered so well. That was about six years ago…you could feel the blight even then, even if you’d never been there. It inspired some interesting conversation:

“I think this is bleak.”
“No no, this is just grim. Bleak is a few miles up, trust me.”
“My God, this land is so… it looks like a 3D renderer without anything built yet.”

And the beach itself… I can imagine going to the beach in Communist Russia, if Communist Russia had beaches, was like that. Grey skies, grey water, grey sand, brown scudge kicked up from a storm out to sea and stinking up the beach. We threw it at each other.

When I went last summer for my high school reunion… urgh. It was worse than I had remembered. Everything seems to be disintegrating. The aquarium was worth going to – the dolphin show and the birds-of-prey show were good examples of their type, though the aquarium’s exhibits pretty much haven’t changed to my memory.

The whole city just reminds me of an old woman with Alzheimer’s in a nursing home with a family that never visits. Tired, failing, waiting to die. :frowning:

ETA:

The local joke for us was that it smelled like the Body of Christ left out in the sun…

8

From what I have read here, it seems to be fitting that the airport code for Corpus Christi is CRP.

9

It gets worse. In Colorado, they named a mountain range for his blood.

10

It’s because one of my best friend’s mom recently passed after a long battle with cancer. Seriously. She was an extremely active force in working to revitalize downtown Corpus but she’d been ill for the past several years when her breast cancer returned for the third time and just passed a couple of month ago. Nobody else there has really picked up the reigns.

11

BWAAAAAHAAAAAAA! :smiley:

12

Yikes. My dad’s best friend hung out there a few times back in the 70s, when it was apparently much nicer, and his life dream is to retire there. I’ll make it a point to not tell him about this . . .

13

Born there. Never been back.

14

I have been to the gulf coast of Texas, and the beaches are really crummy. The water is dirty, and the beaches are not clean. Why is this so? Are the beach towns being run down because of the hurricane issue?

15

Pravnik. Paging Poster Pravnik.
Please report to the Pit to tell us how people who live in Texas actually like their shitty hotels, pathetic cultural attractions, and filthy beaches. And please remind us to just stuff it we can’t say something nice about the place.

16

I’m not pravnik, but I will say that I remember fondly the summers growing up when my parents would pile us into a green Volvo station wagon and drive south to Corpus Christi to have fun on the beach. That was the summer I learned what seawater tastes like. (ptui!)

Unfortunately, that was on the order of something like 20 years ago. :frowning:

17

When the US Navy was about to christen the nuclear sub USS Corpus Christi local citizens got pissy about an instrument of war being named after the Body of Christ.

So the Navy wussed out and named the boat the City of Corpus Christi, despite the existence of Corpus Christi Auto Parts, Corpus Christi Liquor, Corpus Christi Pet Grooming, and other similar outrages that seem to be acceptable to the sensibilities of the locals.

18

OK, I’m bored… I’ll take a whack at this.
I grew up in Texas. I like Texas quite a bit but come on, it’s a place in America. So now because you are unhappy with your experience we gots to pit it? I’m seeing yet another veiled swipe at the Lone Star State.

Just stop it. I have been disappointed on SO many vacations across our great nation… You bought into an ad and now Texas is at fault? Please…

Sorry, I missed your donation to the “repair the town” fund.

Now I’m beginning to see the light. 'Nuff said…

Yes. Let me repeat: Yes. Whataburger (flagship or no) is not “Historical”. It’s a friggin’ burger joint.

Yes, it’s true. As replicas of Italian explorer vessels go, our shopping malls are as tacky as any in America.
I’m teasing, of course, but really… blaming a whole city on a few ne’er do wells?

I’m sorry you had a bad experience. I hope all of your future vacations are much better.

19

I grew up in Corpus Christi. The title of the OP made me laugh out loud.

That town sucks. It’s flat, dirty, brown, smelly, and broke. The refineries stink and so does the bay half the time. It has a truly pathetic downtown area–lots of historical potential and zero interest, apparently, in revitalizing it–and the beach is covered in tar and seaweed half the time. You can’t see your feet in the Gulf once the water reaches your ankles.

There are a few things I like about the city–I grew up there so I do have some fond memories–and mainly they are sentimental in value. Nothing you could advertise in a travel brochure.

I went to school in Austin and now live in San Antonio. Both cities I love. I meet people from CC all the time; we call ourselves “refugees.” Seriously. The joke is that anybody with half a brain leaves that place behind as soon as they get half a chance.

If I were to visit Corpus Christi anytime soon–and I’ve thought about it b/c my SO is from Connecticut and has never seen my hometown–I would get a room in one of the really nice beach hotels down there, lounge by the pool, and seek out the yummy food that only locals know about. (Snoopy’s, Kiko’s, anyone?)

And I wouldn’t stay more than one or two nights, because that’s about all I could stand.

20

I’ve never been to Corpus Christi, but I’ve been to plenty of deptressing and dying towns. Usually they die because some key industry has closed down and gone elsewhere, or disappeared altogether. If this is so in the case of Corpus Christi, what died and cut off the city’s lifeblood? Looking at the Wikipedia site doesn’t help, and the pictures make it look pretty nice. Heck, the town even has a “museum district”, which is more than I can say for most moderate-sized cities:

So tell me, what’s changed?